New Jersey Dreaming: Capital, Culture, and the Class of '58

Analysis of the class of 1958 at Weequahic HS--much changes in the few years after

My class had to pick books to read for presentations. This one was very well-written & enjoyable, so I picked it. Ortner studies the Weequahic High class of 1958 in terms of their high school position (class officer/egghead/jock/hood), family origin, academic track, racial identity, gender, & class mobility. She consider both class, which is often ignored by non-Marxist scholars, & race & gender, which a lot of Marxists say aren't as important as class. She finds reflections of social movements in the students' fates & tries to keep a balance between ascribing success & failure entirely to either social movements or individual agency. A very interesting book.

Ortner returns to her classmates in order to determine their social mobility over 40 years later. She describes the boundaries created people during high school. She also offers a discussion about the complexity of structure versus agency as it pertains to social mobility.